Legimtiamtly the worst side scroller ever made outside of Cheetah Men and indie games.

You are always right near the edge of the screen. The only way to not constantly take damage from scrolling enemies ontop of you is to inch the screen. Hit boxes are too massive and enemies are too unpredictable for anything other than trading blows or screen-inching techniques. Eventually you get a movement speed upgrade at which point trying to do anything without bumping into enemies becomes a comedy. You'll actually take more from trying to avoid enemies than you will from simply button-mashing. To offset this the designers just gave you a stupidly high life pool and health recovery after every boss so you can trade blows effectivily.

The character design, like all other Valis games, is at least fun to look at. The series was never good. It's always had terrible stage design and inadqueate controls but this makes all the others look good by comparasion.